Report: Time to Shake Up B-School Ph.D.s

A group of business-school deans has a message for colleagues running tweedy doctoral programs: It’s time to rip off the elbow patches and get creative.

In a new report that criticizes business-school Ph.D. programs for being out of touch with the corporate sector and slow to adapt to new technology, the deans—members of a task force studying doctoral education—say programs need to do more to mix it up with online media, get closer to actual businesses, collaborate with fellow schools and better prep aspiring Ph.D.s for teaching jobs.

“Business schools have not fully embraced the broad set of purposes that doctoral education is poised to serve,” laments the report which was commissioned by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an industry accrediting body.

Doctoral programs at B-schools are far smaller than M.B.A. programs –many only enroll a few dozen new students each year—and they produce a markedly different product: scholars with deep skills who eventually go on to join business-school faculty or take research roles at private employers like investment banks. But now doctoral programs are coming under the microscope, as new schools in emerging markets scramble to hire qualified faculty.

The changes suggested in the report are “not incremental,” said Robert Sumichrast, dean of Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business and chair of the Task Force on Doctoral Education.

Doctoral programs often promise small classes and close faculty relationships, so online courses aren’t an obvious fit, but the report says schools should consider expanding their reach to underserved regions of the world via online classes, potentially even teaming up with local schools to provide on-the-ground advising along with distance education.

The report also encourages schools to seriously consider collaborating with fellow institutions — citing as an example the Montreal Joint Doctoral Program, an effort from the business schools at Concordia University, HEC Montréal, McGill University and Université du Québec á Montréal — to provide students with a larger pool of course offerings and broader exposure than a program at any one school.

Robert Sullivan, chair of AACSB International and dean of University of California, San Diego’s Rady School of Management, says tie-ups could make better use of schools’ limited resources. Rady is considering joining forces with other UC schools to offer doctoral-degree courses, such as behavioral marketing.

The report also recommends schools cater more to senior-level executives interested in pursuing advanced degrees but uninterested in joining the faculty ranks—a suggestion that may raise eyebrows. That could help schools build corporate relationships for future research, and ensure that their courses align with what’s really happening in business.

Taking on deep-pocketed executives would also provide a nice revenue stream for doctoral programs, the report’s authors state. Programs usually cover doctoral students’ tuition and living expenses and devote significant faculty resources to training them.

Several business schools, including those at Oklahoma State University and Georgia State University, already offer such programs for executives. And Virginia Tech is “very actively” considering an executive doctorate in northern Virginia to appeal to working corporate or government professionals, Sumichrast says.

Many current Ph.D. programs already have ties to industry. Recent doctoral candidates from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business have landed positions at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which see value in doctoral students’ deep research skills.

The report comes at a time of introspection for the accreditor AACSB, which counts nearly 250 member schools with doctoral programs. New accreditation standards issued this spring urged flexibility and innovation in course content, delivery methods and faculty credentialing.

A 2003 report from the accrediting body forecast that within a decade schools would face a shortage of more than 2,400 doctoral candidates qualified for faculty hiring due to a wave of retirements and new schools hungry for hires. The latest report acknowledges the continuing shortage, but didn’t update its projections.

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